


Eyes to Serve, Hands to Learn

by SandrC



Series: Not Another Fanfiction Collection [18]
Category: Not Another D&D Podcast (Podcast)
Genre: Gardening as Therapy, Learning to deal with trauma, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, despite everything its still you, learning to heal again, let Egwene and Erln be kids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-16
Updated: 2019-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-08 12:40:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21816955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SandrC/pseuds/SandrC
Summary: The war has ended and everyone is happy. The war has ended and everyone is resting. The war has ended and everyone is safe.The war has ended and Egwene Kindleaf doesn't know what to make of herself, even as her brother stays behind with her, his own eyes just as sad as hers.(Or: children learn to be children again)
Relationships: Egwene Kindleaf & Erlin Kindleaf
Series: Not Another Fanfiction Collection [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1312925
Comments: 6
Kudos: 28





	Eyes to Serve, Hands to Learn

**Author's Note:**

  * For [KLStarre](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KLStarre/gifts).

> Title from the Mumford & Sons song "Below my Feet". Idea borrowed from [this post](https://beverlytoegoldv.tumblr.com/post/189302449984/god-i-was-thinking-about-egwene-and-welin-after) coz Kes has hot Egwene takes and I wholeheartedly agree.
> 
> I spend a weird amount of time thinking about how the Green Teens wind up being a fast-track military program. Moreso that Egwene being the youngest Green Knight is considered an "honor". Even more about the execution scene and how Egwene told Beverly it was okay to look away. That becoming used to this kind of violence wasn't good.
> 
> I just...Egwene is tragic and she deserves rest.
> 
> This is set in a post-campaign scenario where things go okay, they kill Thiala and the Hollow Gods and nothing much else goes horribly wrong with Bahumia proper. The Boobs are off fixing minor things with their hero-complex asses. I didn't think about what they were up to because this isn't about them. It's about Egwene and Erlin. Mostly Egwene but also Erlin.
> 
> They deserve their time in the sun.
> 
> Let children be children. Let them live their lives. I want them to heal.
> 
> Hope y'all like it. I wrote this while listening to a playlist called "chill, or lightly depressed, or gay yearning" which is appropriate. Also I had a cat in my lap for the majority of the writing period. He is currently sleeping while having made a nest for himself in the blanket I have slung across my legs.
> 
> Remember: make things. Even if they aren't good, you made them and that makes them special. They contain pieces of you. You are your most honest when you create, imho.
> 
> Edit: I think this was fic 69 in the tag and I am so goddamn pleased by this so let the record show that I noticed and I'm flummoxed.

The war was over and it was the best news anyone's heard in _years_. The folks who has been living in Hillholm split, half going back to rebuild Galaderon—Beverly and his mother chief among them—and the other half remaining in Hillholm to continue their lives as they had been for the past few months. There was no longer a need for vast armies at the ready. There were no more large-scale invasions at hand. They could rest.

Egwene Kindleaf found it hard to rest.

She had given up what could be considered most of her formative years to fast-track her way to being a soldier, not _just_ for her dead parents, but _also_ for her brother and her Nana. She wanted to make sure they were safe, so she gave up her own safety in exchange.

Now that everyone was safe, she didn't know _what_ to make of herself.

Hands that had spent hours carving arrows out of flint and broken branches, fletching them with the pinions of birds she'd shot down for practice and food, were now empty. Hours spent doing drills outside with a dummy were wasted. She didn't have any friends and she didn't have any hobbies. She had shaped herself into a soldier and the war was over. She should be able to hang up her bow and relax.

She _couldn't_.

_She's on the deck of the airship. The wind screams in her ears and she can hear her parents cry out, asking her **why** she wasn't strong enough to save them. It doesn't matter that she was a child back then. **She wasn't strong enough.**_

_Below is Asmodea, swarming with demons and orcs alike, firing anti-airship spells and artillery into the sky. **Everyone** is pressed to the deck save for Red and Gunther, who are in the crow's nest and at the wheel respectively, used to the sounds of battle in the sky. They laugh, the sound of men who **know** that they'll die before their time. It resonates in her chest. She has laughed this laugh before. She wants to join them because she feels the same. She is going to die in battle **long** before old age takes her._

_She is listening. **Waiting**. She knows that some of the demons have wings. If they get up, she can take them out. She can be the first line of defense. She can protect Erlin. And then, after that, is Irondeep. After Irondeep is taking out Asmodea. Then the Nine Hells. Piece by piece. Save the world. Save people._

_A hand clasps her shoulder and she draws her blade—_

Erlin's eyes were wide, both hands in the air. He whispered in soft halfling, "_It's **me**. It's **me**. It's **okay**, it's** just me**._"

Slowly, Egwene lowered her knife. The knife she had forgotten she stashed under her pillow. The knife she had pointed at her brother.

_The knife she had pointed at her brother._

Her _brother_.

_She only wanted to **protect** him._

A choked sob tore it's way out of her, clawing her throat and ribs on its way out. Her eyes burned and she shuddered with the effort of silencing her tears.

Erlin reached up and took her knife, setting it down on her nightstand. He wrapped her up in his arms and let her cry, letting her head rest on his shoulder.

_When_ had his shoulders become broad enough to support her? When had he become _strong_ enough to reach out and comfort _her_? When had _she_ become broken enough to not notice his own strength?

He rubbed small circles in her back, murmuring reassuring nonsense in halfling. Little things like "_It's **okay**, I'm here_" and "_You're safe, **I promise**. We're **all** safe now._"

"I don't know what to _do_?" It was less a confession and more of a plea. The unspoken request for help like lead, sinking against her molars. She could taste copper. Her ears rang with phantom incantations of mages unseen. Shadows looked like enemies with blades, poised to attack. She didn't know how to stop whatever in her was broken. "It doesn't go away. It _never_ goes away. I'm _so_ tired. _I don't know what to do._"

He pulled away, a sly smile on his face, eyes sad but lit up. He had an idea. Holding up one finger for her to wait, he picked up her knife and cast Light on it, deftly chucking it so it stuck, point-first, in the ceiling above her bed. Then he stood up and turned for the door, motioning for her to stay put. "_One_ sec." She watched him retreat, his pajamas muffling any noise he would have made otherwise.

She pulled her knees against her chest and waited, heart hammering a panicked tempo. Her ears still hummed, nerves alight. The soft white light of her dagger cast fine shadows across her room and she was acutely aware of _how little_ she actually kept in it. How little personality her living quarters had. How similar to the barracks they were.

A dresser for clothes, a bed to sleep on, a door leading to the rest of the house, a window, a door leading to a balcony that looked over Hillholm proper. Nothing more, nothing less. _Assailants_ could hide in an armoire. They could skulk in closets. Perfumes and products could become _poisons_ if tampered with.

She lived a spartan life and it was all because they had been at war. She hadn't had a chance to unlearn any of that conditioning.

She hadn't _wanted_ to unlearn. Didn't want to unlearn it.

(_Did she?_ Was it a part of her or was she foolishly clinging to habits to keep from drifting away inside her own head, unmoored?)

Erlin came back a few minutes later, a bag in his grasp. He scrambled back on her bed and put the bag between them, smiling expectantly. Her breathing had long since leveled out, eyes finally clear, and she raised a single eyebrow at him.

"_What's this_?" Her voice wasn't any louder than a whisper. It's not like she _had_ to—Nana was _mostly_ deaf—but old habits die hard. _Wartime habits_ even _harder_.

"_Well_," he smiled at her, all teeth and youthful innocence, "you _kinda_ missed out on some things, being a Knight super young and all, so I figured I'd teach you some of the things you skipped!"

_Oh. **Yeah.**_

Because she was so focused on graduating to Green Knight early, she only took classes and patches that were _practical_ and that _mattered_, with _real-world_ applications. Unlike Erlin and his dweeby fucking group, who were completionist shits, and had tried to get _every_ patch in fucking existence.

And here _he_ was trying to pass on some of what he knew she missed out on.

A soft snort escaped her nose and she smiled. "_Okay_?"

"_Well_ if you need something to do with your hands, figure a little basket weaving never hurt anyone." With the light being cast down from her dagger, Erlin looked like a ridiculous ginger angel. All smiles and sincerity. Goddamn. He upended the bag, revealing a bunch of flexible reed strips. "So let's get going while it's still dark, _huh_?"

"Yeah, _whatever_." But she doesn't say she isn't grateful. That would be a lie.

She wasn't good at it. Not at first. Her baskets were crooked and rushed, the reeds bent and broken in places. She lost her temper more than once and she didn't even finish her first basket until three lessons after the impromptu one in the middle of the night. It was lumpy, misshapen, and mostly broken. It couldn't hold a rock, let alone anything of worth.

She said she was going to do better, so she _did_.

Whenever her fingers itched—the prickle of unrest that _usually_ led to her making arrows just to keep from thinking about unseen assailants—she grabbed her latest basket and worked on it. Soon her bedroom was filled with janky, _barely_ serviceable baskets, but she didn't sharpen her dagger _once_ that week. They remained in their sheathes, one on her upper thigh and one on her hip. Unused and no less dull for it.

When she woke up in the middle of the night, pleas and panic on her lips, she would grab a handful of reeds and _weave_. The over-under-over-under pattern was like waves, rocking her mind to still silence. With her hands occupied, she could think through the dreams and pick them to pieces with her teeth. Nightmares became memories. Memories became pieces-parts. And from there was dream dust and a basket that looked like a half-blind child had made it, but her thoughts were still and the stars were out and she could sleep again. In the pile it went, taking up more floor space than anything else she owned, and she would fall back asleep with little effort, dreams _silent_ for a change.

The first time she finished a basket and she was actually _pleased_ with how it looked, something in her clicked back into place. She wouldn't have given the feeling the name "_satisfaction_" because that was too small a word. She would _probably_, if pressed a bit, call it "_content_", maybe even "_proud_". She didn't feel like she needed to make it _better_ or make it _again_. She had accomplished a goal and, looking at this thing she made with her two hands, was _excited_. She wanted to put this basket to use. She wanted to feel _this feeling_ more. She wanted to try something _new_.

She wasn't _worried_ for the future. She was _excited_.

The next thing Erlin taught her was Light. "You seemed like you'd get some use out of it." A placation, _sure_, but he wasn't _wrong_. "Besides," he shrugged, "rangers don't get cantrips, right? You just have the first and second level ones with slots, _right_?" She nodded, mentally running through the ones she knew. Alarm, Pass Without Trace, Hunter's Mark, Longstrider. Combative. "So let's learn something that's more _my_ speed! _Plus_ you can _always_ use a light when it's dark."

In her room, surrounded by piles of misshapen but finished baskets, Erlin painstakingly taught her to conjure light from nothing, pinning it with a prayer to an object of her choosing. The two of them only practiced at night, when one or both of them found their dreams and thoughts too loud to sleep. They used it as an excuse to pretend they weren't still terrified of the tenuous peace they had found crumbling down around their ears.

Egwene tried many different colors with many different prayers. Blue light for nights when the ocean and the sky are screaming against the shores of her head. Red light for blood spilled between fingers and screaming because he went down and she _knows_ he's strong but _he went down_ and she can see their parents corpses in the glassy sightlessness of his eyes. Yellow light for sunrises creeping over the rock face of Irondeep, a dread in her stomach because this isn't an _end_, but a door to a _beginning_. Purple light for arcane magic flickering and flashing as the Faewild swallows their friends and saves them from the burning of Galaderon. Green light for a childhood deferred, firing arrows into dummies and thinking about how one day she may have to do this _to people_. White light for a holy monster who _says_ she's doing a good thing but is a _liar_ and a _murderer_. Almost-black light for gods with red eyes clawing their way from the Hells, another monster to kill, another thing to hate.

Pink light for the pain in her brother's face when Beverly confesses, for the feeling of jealousy that he even _had that_ in the first place.

When the spell settled into her bones, she found the color she liked best: a soft teal for peace and silence. For safety. Abjuration. Absolution. _Forgiveness_. A good night's rest. Baskets of woven reeds with fear and anxiety in their weft.

The nights when she weaved baskets were lit by that prayer, cast on one strand at a time, slowly creating a rainbow effect as she let the over-under movement leech the worry from her skin. The light illuminated her face from below and she wondered how much older she looked than her nineteen years. How much time has taken. How much more battle took from that. If she was hard lines instead of soft curves. If her childhood fled at the first sight of blood and if it stole her youth away with it like eloping lovers.

Nights are not without nightmares, but the nightmares become baskets made in the light of a spell and a prayer.

"Try gardening!" He offered next. She stared him down but his sincerity didn't waver. "It's one of my _favorites_ and I've found that it's a good motivator for getting up some days." The way he said that sad thing was _so heartbreaking_ but she didn't call him out. They spent enough nights awake that there was no need. They could pretend when the sun was up.

"Garden _what_? Flowers? Do I _look_ like a _flower_ girl?" She opted for sarcasm. Bury the truth under biting sarcasm and piles of baskets and a spartan lifestyle and two knives, one strapped to her upper thigh and the other to her waist.

But Erlin, who knew her better than anyone who had _ever_ lived, shrugged. He wasn't intimidated any more. They had seen worse and she was just posturing. "Herbs. _Weeds_. Plants for poultices and potions. Things you can make into tea. Succulents. Take your pick." His smile was warm, sunshine and cloud cover, and his eyes were sad, _we should have had **more** but we **didn't** and this is what **we** make of it._ "I like growing plants used in paints. Pigments are hard to find in most places and there's something _rewarding_ in making every step of a craft."

He wasn't _wrong_.

Gardening was time consuming. While weaving was slow, methodical, and mind-numbing, gardening was _waiting_ and _watching_. Though patience had always been her forte, her patience had always been that of a drawn bow, a coiled spring, tight and taut and ready to go at _all_ moments. Gardening required patience more akin to drying meat or healing. _Slow_, _unworried_, and _drifting_. If she was taut, she would make mistakes. She would _kill_ what she was trying to _grow_.

The baskets that were made of her restless nights held lightly packed dirt, dug out of the far fields that had been left to fallow while the farmers of Hillholm rotated crops. Some of them sat on her balcony, others in the window with it open wide to shower them with sunlight—Alarm strung on the threshold of that entrance giving her panicked worry pause, the ingrained fear of an intruder woven into the basket that contained a brand new cactus. Others were sat outside, grown roots pushing between too-wide slats in the early attempts at weaving, dipping into the ground beneath them to become one with the world at large.

She panicked and over watered some, hovering too close, too often. Erlin made an offhand comment about how she was with him and she dead-armed him but he wasn't _wrong_. She gave him flack about it being _defenseless_. He showed her the _thorns_ and _poisons_ that lurked underneath the surface. It was a _big metaphor_ and _she knew it_ but she let go. She _let go_.

_Months_ later, when the first of her surviving plants bloomed a bright blue—forget-me-nots that she managed to keep alive in spite of her many cock-ups—she _wept_. Catharsis and joy.

It felt good to see _life_. It felt good to _grow_.

He taught her tea ceremonies and her garden started containing small batches of plants she made into a calming drink for hard days. He taught her painting and she had to agree that growing her own pigments _was_ worth it. He taught her how to make a blade whistle out of long saw-grass. He taught her how to whittle small figurines from wood and bone. He taught her how to sign when the words failed her. He taught her how to tie knots that looked like intricate works of art—veritably useless, but _pretty_. He taught her how to make daisy chains and flower crowns. He taught her how to make brushes of horse hair and sturdy wood. He taught her how to paint portraits and landscapes, broad strokes capturing the world at large. He taught her songs of life and rebirth and the dances that went along with them.

Time passed and she learned. He taught her. She listened.

The war was over and the surface of Bahumia bore scars. The _people_ of Bahumia bore scars. _Their psyche_ bore scars.

The war was over and there was _so much to do_ but there was time to do it now, so they took the road less traveled, meandering to watch the leaves fall. They took their time and took it slow.

The war was over and Egwene the Lady Snake had a room the color of brilliant sunlight covered in half-finished murals of places she barely remembered. Poorly-woven baskets with dried herbs and hand-made paintbrushes covered her nightstand. Her bed was unmade, a blanket made of too many patterns and colors piled at the foot of it, a bundle of lavender tucked under her pillow to calm her in the evening. The door leading outside to her small balcony remained open, the remnants of a silver thread at the threshold, the magic uncast for many months now. On the balcony were all sorts of greenery in various stages of flowering and drowning—a habit she _still_ struggled with. A small table and a chair occupied a corner of the balcony, a hand-made teacup with leafy residue at the bottom of it grew cold, though it would be reused soon enough. At night, when the stars were out, a soft teal light leaked out over the floor and spilled onto the ground beneath as she made baskets to contain her darkest dreams.

She hadn't made an arrow in months, her dreams woven into containers for new life. She sang songs of seasons and the moon, battle-hymns _never once_ crossing her lips as she danced through her chores. She laughed as her cleverly made ink-bomb caught Erlin off-guard, coating him in brilliant white pigment. They chased each other across the hills, swearing and slinging harmless spells.

In her room, on a yellow wall, hanging from a few iron nails, was her helmet and bow and quiver. They stayed there, unused but well-kept, remnants of a life she would return to if needed. But _only_ if needed.

The war was over and, like the garden on her balcony, she flourished under the light of a new day.

**Author's Note:**

> Finsl thoughts about this version of Egwene: she has two tattoos. One is a sleeve on her dominant arm, a mass of flowers; forget-me-nots in a light teal, a lattice of yellow roses with crimson thorns, green-to-pink succulents with magenta blossoms, soft lavender sprigs, and a brilliant sunflower at the center of it all.
> 
> On her non-dominant shoulder is a snake's skull, fangs sunken into her flesh, with a handful of white lillies blooming from one eye-socket. In memorium, to her parents and to the Lady Snake. She is Egwene Kindleaf and she is done fighting for now.


End file.
